


New Day Coming

by escritoireazul



Series: Fabulous Fic Fifteen [1]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Fabulous Fic Fifteen, Families of Choice, Gen, Post-X-Men: Days of Future Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 12:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1857900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's not Raven, she's not Mystique, she's neither, she's both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Day Coming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilacsigil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsigil/gifts).



> Written for: Fabulous Fic Fifteen (Celebrating 15 years of posting fanfic online.)  
> Prompt: lilacsigil requested Mystique, belonging  
> Characters: Mystique, Gambit, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff  
> Spoilers: through X-Men: Days of Future Past  
> Author's note: To celebrate fifteen years of posting fanfic online, I put up a list of all the fandoms in which I've posted fic over the years and asked for requests. You can see the fandoms and request stories [here](http://escritoireazul.dreamwidth.org/369116.html).

_Head in my hands,_  
Time slipping away,  
like falling sand.  
Till it’s bleeding daylight.  
The rope pulled tight.  
Now I’m standing still  
on the edge of a knife.  
“New Day Coming” Scott Stapp

1\. 

She’s not Raven. She’s not Mystique. She’s neither, she’s both.

All the forms she’s worn, all the faces, the names, she’s had herself at the base of it, somewhere deep inside. Now, she doesn’t, not really. Mystique is too Eric. Raven is too Charles. She’s not, she’s not, she’s not. 

Idealistic, pragmatic, future utopia, dystopia, past privileged, broken.

Her picture is everywhere, monster with a gun. She stares at the black and white pictures in the papers, the grainy clips on the news, and tries to see something, anything, in her own face. She barely recognizes it, herself. She’s dangerous, she’s strange.

If she could, she wouldn’t read the articles, wouldn’t listen to the news. She can’t avoid everyone talking, always, she can’t, she can’t, she can’t. They think she’s a killer, they think she’s a saint, she’s a threat, she showed compassion.

They don’t know what to make of her.

That’s ok.

She doesn’t know herself.

2.

Gambit shuffles his cards, flips them hand to hand, easy. He collects decks of them, designs on the back. Some are pretty, some are lewd, all are vibrant colors, edges worn soft by the rub of his hands. His fingers are long, strangely delicate, and sometimes she watches him shuffle, deal, sucking down whiskey that burns her throat.

They play poker, black jack, one day, to make her laugh, go fish. She flips cards at his head, and he plucks them out of the air, walks them along his fingers.  
Angel would have liked him, she thinks, and the thought makes her eyes ache. She drinks extra hard that night, tries to drown what she’s seen, trophies in cases, bodies cut apart, pieces methodically placed. Instead she remembers glistening wings, Angel’s laugh, the nights they could act silly and young.

3.

Wanda comes next, tracks them down herself, and sends Pietro in to check them out. Not that any of them know that until Wanda tells them, jaw tensed, hands crossed over her chest, but her eyes too bright. Pietro stops his running to stand next to her, hand on her shoulder, and they look so, so young.

Gambit flirts, teaches them poker. Wanda rolls her eyes, learns to beat him nearly every time. Pietro ignores him, except Gambit’s favorite things start turning up around the house. 

4.

Sometimes, she thinks about calling Hank. She’s not ready to talk to Charles, she has no use still for Eric, but Hank … he is kind.

He is ashamed of what she is, what he has become.

He is kind, and he is broken, and she’s, and she’s, and she’s…

5.

Sometimes Wanda calls her Raven, and that is ok. 

Sometimes Wanda calls her Mystique, and that’s ok too.

When she finally calls Charles, she has a family at her back, and she thinks, she thinks, she thinks, oh, maybe it’s time to take them home.


End file.
